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The defeated Equality Bill contains Harmanesque poison

Last night the Government was defeated in three key votes on the Equality Bill. The Bill is not all bad. It consolidates into one Bill a lot of anti-discrimination law (some good, some not so good) that is at present scattered across several Acts, making it easier to read and understand. However, there are within it some really nasty Harmanesque capsules of authoritarian poison, and a prime example of European judicial Imperialism. Last night it was the Churches who were to be the victims, but in a packed House things did not go the way of the Government.

Before the main clash between the Government and the largely religious lobby, the prominent homosexual Labour peer Lord Ali moved some amendments which posed some awkward questions for those of us who do not believe that the state should look into men's heads and seek to criminalise their thoughts, rather than their actions. Fortunately in the face of the Government's opposition he did not push his amendments to a vote, although he might do at a later stage.

The big argument was over the extent to which churches, mosques, temples or synagogues may refuse to employ people whose actions or lifestyles contradict the teachings of the religions concerned. The charge was led by Baroness O'Cathain, with formidable support from a battery of bishops including the formidable Archbishop Sentamu and the retired judge Baroness Butler-Sloss.

I think that they were always going to win the vote as well as the argument, but government defeat turned almost to a rout when some of its friends pointed out that it really did not matter a scrap which way the vote went as the law governing who the Church of England may, or may not employ, is not the law enacted here in England by our Parliament, but the law of Europe as dictated by our masters in Brussels. That put up the backs of a good many peers, who voted for the Churches rather than Brussels.

The Government now has a problem. Should it ask the Commons to vote for the European authorities against freedom of conscience and religion or risk a case being brought against a church – or God forbid, a mosque – and decided in Europe, not here in Britain? The only comfort for Gordon Brown is that it is more likely to land in David Cameron's lap than his.

I will be interested to read what the Euro-apologists make of it all. In the meantime, however, I should take up a few of the points raised by others commenting on earlier blogs. First of all I should say to Pragmatist that I do regret that I was not able to prevent the demise of selective education during my time in Government. However, I was never an Education Minister and it is not easy, in fact it is almost impossible, for a minister in one department to make the policy of another. The Prime Minister did ask me to return to the Cabinet in 1990 as Secretary of State for Education and perhaps I should have done so, but that is another story.

I think it was Archie 23 who told me not to imagine that Magna Carta was the source of our fundamental freedoms. I thought I had made it plain that Magna Carta required King John not to grant freedoms but to acknowledge that he had no authority to deny those freedoms which were granted by birth.

And to Chris I should say that I did not – and do not – seek isolation from Europe. I seek a different relationship with the other nations of Europe in which we do not try to govern them, nor they to govern us. But more of that another day. We should be pleased that the reality of our near-colonial status is becoming clearer every day.